Changes:
Michael Herck (Junior Racing Team) is back for another run
in the Invitation Class, while HBR are still here with us
after their initial appearance at Monza a month ago, but this
time just with Alejandro Nunez. Otherwise, apart from the
fact that Stephen Jelley's blue and black car is now sporting
a shiny gold air-box for some reason.

Qualifying
Report:
With the meeting running slightly late, the drivers took to
the track around 7 minutes late, on a cold, slightly damp
August morning. Tim Bridgman (Hitech Motorsport), who claimed
to have learned some lessons from his indiscretions at Monza,
was first out, while Mike Conway (Fortec Motorsport) was last
out by quite a long way. Of course, because Bridgman was first
out, he was also the first to the top of the times, just ahead
of Steven Kane (Promatecme F3) and series leader Alvaro Parente
(Carlin Motorsport). Meanwhile, Nick Jones was failing to
register any times, apparently because the transponder on
his Team SWR car wasn't working (though it is just possible
that he really is that slow). He wasn't the only one whose
times were not showing up properly, as there seemed to be
a general tendency for the bottom half of the timing screen
to register nothing at all, at least in terms of lap times.
It was showing the first sector times but nothing else, which
wasn't exactly helpful.
A lap later, Bridgman was still ahead of the pack, only this
time around it was from the top two in the National Class,
Ben Clucas (Fluid Motorsport) and Salvador Duran (P1 Motorsport).
The order began to change when Bruno Senna (Double R Racing)
put in his bid for pole, though he didn't get to stay there
for long. He was soon overtaken by Parente, who was keen to
repeat his dominance of Monza, and who was also being hotly
pursued by Kane. Dirani supplanted the Northern Irishman at
the first possible opportunity, but was edged back out by
Charlie Kimball (Carlin Motorsport). It was beginning to look
like yet another Carlin lockout was developing, but not if
Marko Asmer (Hitech Racing) had anything to do with it. The
Estonian was carrying on from his form in testing on Tuesday
with a fine turn of speed, seemingly back on form at last.
Meanwhile, Clucas had lost his grip on the class pole, and
had been forced to give ground to Duran.
Meanwhile, Conway was on the move and had wrestled his way
up to 4th. He seemed to be after playing with Dirani again;
perhaps he'd enjoyed himself at Monza, where the two of them
seemed to have been joined together with super-glue. Whatever
the case, they were busy scrapping for 5th place, along with
Kane and Senna. Jelley, on the other hand, was floundering
at the back of the order, way down in 25th. There was something
going badly wrong at Menu again, though judging by the amount
of time he spent in the pits, this time it looked to be mechanical
rather than psychological. Asmer was still looking good, and
was now on pole from Parente by a very small margin, a mere
0.059 seconds.
A lap or two later that was reversed, when Parente took pole
back, by 0.059 seconds It was a bit odd really. And
that was the end of the fight for pole, with over half the
session still remaining. Parente soon came back to the pits
and sat out the rest of the half hour, and he wasn't the only
one choosing to remain in the pit lane rather than wasting
their tyres in pursuit of improvements that had simply stopped
coming. Duran was leading the National class by a couple of
seconds from Jonathan Kennard (Alan Docking Racing), so he
too quit wasting time and rubber, settling in on the pit wall
to watch the timing screens. He was joined shortly afterwards
by Dirani, and for another 10 minutes or so absolutely nothing
was changing. However, just because no one was improving didn't
mean that they weren't trying. Bridgman had slipped down the
order and was trying all sorts to get ahead; driving on the
grass, the kerbs, the rumble strip. Whatever it was he did
learn from Monza, it wasn't that driving too aggressively
in an F3 car does no good. It duly did him no good when he
finally pushed that bit too hard going into Copse and his
Dallara immediately swapped ends and smashed into the barriers.
The car was more than a little second-hand looking, and the
fact that Josh Fisher also fell off at that point left the
officials with no choice but to red flag the session with
five minutes to go.
At this point (as it had been for some time) the order was
Parente, from Asmer, Kimball, Conway, Dirani, Kane, Daniel
Clarke (Double R Racing), Senna, James Walker (Fortec Motorsport)
and Christian Bakkerud (Carlin Motorsport), the latter suffering
from a misfire all through the session. 11th was Ryan Lewis
(T-Sport), Bridgman, National Class pole sitter Duran, Invitation
Class pole man Herck, Kennard, Karl Reindler (Alan Docking
Racing), Ronayne O'Mahony (Fortec Motorsport), Alejandro Nunez
(HBR Motorsport), Clucas and Charlie Hollings (Promatecme
F3) who was struggling to get on terms with the National Class
leader and couldn't quite figure out why. The remainder of
the line up consisted of Barton Mawer (T-Sport), Jelley, Juho
Annala (Alan Docking Racing), Keiko Ihara (Carlin Motorsport),
Fisher, Ricardo Teixeira (Carlin Motorsport), Cheong Lou Meng
(Edenbridge Racing) and the transponder-less Jones.
Eventually the wreckage was cleared up and the session restarted
with five minutes left. Most people didn't bother going out,
though Jelley made the effort. Considering how far down the
order he was, he had no real choice. A handful of the other
National Class runners also went out, mostly those whose times
hadn't shown up. Perhaps they were afraid to take a chance,
just in case things didn't work out and they turned out not
to have registered a time. It was a complete waste of effort
on everyone's part as it turned out, Jelley being the only
driver to actually post a faster time. It didn't really help
him much, though he did gain three places. It lifted him into
the top twenty, though really he should be so much further
forward.
It wasn't exactly an exciting session, frankly, though it
was typical of Silverstone. If the race turns out to be as
unenthralling as qualifying there'll be a desperate need of
stimulants to keep the spectators awake. Maybe it's just that
we had way too much excitement in Italy and the motorsport
gods don't want us to get used to it